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“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.”
— Proverbs 12:25
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For this week’s prayer guide, I want to offer something that is simple but not easy.
As I was praying for you, my thoughts kept gravitating toward the weight of anxiety. I’ve navigated anxiety more often than I’d care to admit. Among other things, it has cost me thousands of hours of sleep. My lack of presentness, however, is the greatest price. To be honest, I don’t remember much from one of my daughter’s first years of life because my anxious consciousness was somewhere else.By God’s grace, I’m starting to see anxiety for what it is, and I now trade much less time and energy for what the psalmist calls the “bread of anxious toil.” I’m re-learning a childlike trust that extends beyond what I can build or control with my mind and hands, and living prayer has become the antidote to anxiety, my reasonable response when life lies beyond my control.
Response
In what I used to view as an annoyingly chipper passage, Paul gives us a framework for freedom from anxiety (Philippians 4:4–13). I would read this passage, memorize it, pray through it, and claim its promised peace for myself. But nothing really changed. It took me a while to realize I was missing Paul’s big point. I wanted the peace—don’t we all!— but I didn’t want to actually release my cares, worries, or anxieties to God. Letting go felt risky and foolish. I wanted to hedge my bets.
I didn’t understand that God required a trade: I wouldn’t be grasped by His peace until I released what I was grasping onto.
Closing Thoughts
Peter describes the Accuser as a roaring lion, searching out ways to devour your thoughts and destroy your life. Our countermove is to cast our cares on God, knowing He cares for us (1 Peter 5:5–10).
Both Paul and Peter call us to reorient ourselves in the humility and confidence of grace. A grace that cuts through life’s ambiguities. A grace that redeems the anxiousness that comes with fragility, transforming anxiety into just another part of the human experience, a sacred space where we discover that God’s power truly does its best work through our surrendered weakness.
Praying with you,
Addison
P.S. I write a good amount on anxiety and prayer in my book Words with God, specifically in the chapter “I Am Here.” If you’re new to this community or don’t have the book yet, just click here to get your copy (it’s available via book, eBook, and audiobook).
P.P.S. If you’d like to also receive these prayer guides via text, click here.
